Ex-Okla. teacher pleads no contest to child porn

SHAWNEE, Okla. (AP) — A retired college professor pleaded guilty Wednesday and a former third-grade teacher pleaded no contest to child exploitation and pornography charges after prosecutors said the Oklahoma teacher took photos of her students dancing in their underwear and shared them with the man in Pennsylvania.

Kimberly Crain of Shawnee and retired professor of early childhood development Gary Doby of Bloomsburg, Pa., entered pleas in Pottawatomie County District Court. They had been scheduled to go to trial on the charges Monday.

The judge sentenced Doby to life in prison on each of the exploitation counts. Crain faces sentencing March 22; the judge says she faces a minimum of 25 years.

They were ordered to stand trial in May on multiple counts of sexual exploitation of a child under 12 as well as conspiracy to commit sexual exploitation and lewd molestation. Crain was also charged with multiple counts of possession of juvenile pornography.

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At a preliminary hearing, nine students aged 9 to 11 testified that Crain took photos of them in her classroom in McLoud and during a pizza party at her home in nearby Shawnee while they were wearing tank tops and underwear. Prosecutors said Crain then shared the images with Doby. McLoud is 30 miles east of Oklahoma City.

Among the witnesses was a 9-year-old old girl who said Crain told her to open her legs and dance as Crain took photos.

Another former student testified that she and other students went to Crain’s home in November 2011 for a pizza party where they changed into Christmas-themed panties and bras, then hid behind a couch when the pizza deliveryman arrived so he could not see them. Several of the students said Crain told them not to tell their parents what they had done.

Among the evidence introduced in the case were copies of photographs Crain allegedly took of as many as 14 girls, including images that District Attorney Richard Smothermon said were captured using a hidden video camera that showed the girls naked as they changed clothes.

Crain resigned in November 2011 after the allegations were revealed. Doby, who retired in 2008 as professor of early childhood development at Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania, was arrested in December 2011 at his home in Pennsylvania and extradited to Oklahoma to face the charges.

Prosecutors say the two met during the 1980s when Crain was a student and Doby a professor at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee.